Day 7 - June 20 - Florence to Rome

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We slept until ten, then woke up and packed. Check-out time was eleven, and our plan was to hit the Boboli Gardens, then retrieve our packs and train to Rome. We ate one last breakfast on our magnificent terrace, finishing off our supplies of fruit and juice, packed up the remaining supplies - olive oil, vinegar, wine, and bit of Tuscan deli meat - and left our packs in the lobby.

By the time we hit the Open Door Café for “second breakfasts” - coffee and pastry - it was raining. We decided the Boboli was out - touring an outdoor garden in the rain is just not our thing, no matter how much we wanted to see it. “We pass through Florence twice more on the trip,” I told Sam. “If its sunny we can see the garden then.”.

“No,” he said. “Next time.”

So we headed to our back up plan: the Bargello, a museum I had wanted to see but that we had not had time to fit in. Turns out: the Bargello is only open every third Sunday, and this was Sunday #1 or #2. Closed. With a sigh, we just looked at each other and decided to give up. Rome was calling.

It took us a few minutes to figure out the train system, and then we dashed to find the right platform and board our Eurostar fast train for Rome. The tickets were twice as much as a regional slow train but we had decided it was worth it. It was a comfy ride, with storage compartments above our heads for our packs, huge windows, air conditioning. The two hour ride to Rome passed pleasantly reading, snacking on the lunch we’d packed ourselves, and looking out the window.

We got off at Termini, called the number for our apartment and started walking. The horror stories I’d read about Termini were not so bad. We got asked for money once but firmly said no and just kept walking, and ignored anyone trying to hand out flyers or talk us into a cab. We didn’t stop to look at our map until we were several blocks away, only to find we were on the right track after all! Really, the walk to our apartment - Tana Del Gatto through Roman Reference - was only about fifteen minutes. Even so, I was glad for the light packs.

We arrived 45min before our scheduled meeting with the apartment rep, and we were hungry. Sam wanted a sandwich place but there was an open pizzeria restaurant right beside the apartment so I talked him into going in. We split a pizza and each had a beer. And my goodness - that pizza was the best I had tasted so far! Immediately I knew that during our ten days in Rome, we would frequent this neat little pizzeria, Trattoria il Tettarello, many times… and we did!

The Roman Reference apartment rep was so friendly and accommodating I would not hesitate to recommend the service. Turns out the office is right across the street from the apartment! He showed us everything in the apartment, including the tricky latch for the balcony, before asking for money. It was exactly as represented: a small kitchenette, bathroom with shower, two twin beds put together to make a double and a lovely, large terrace.

We had gone “cheap” in our accommodations for Rome - the apartment was about $650 euro for the full ten days. It was perfectly comfortable and we sure made good use of that terrace, but there was nothing luxurious about it. See my full review. It was perfectly functional (once we rigged up the bed a little), and it was nice to have the terrace as sanctuary. I’d stay there again, but not for more than 4 or 5 days.

After a rest, we wandered over to Piazza Santa Maria Maggiore - about a ten minute walk, back towards the train station - and stopped by the tourist office to pick up a map (invaluable!) and our Roma passes. We also went to the supermarket and stocked up on produce and snacks. We then spent the rest of the evening sitting on our terrace with our feet up, munching our snacks, watching the ballet of birds that we would watch every night dance through the sky to find their meals, and steeling ourselves for the next ten days of city life, Roman style.

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